Down Another Way

Julia Stone says she feels a combination of emotions that keeps changing from fragility to sadness to happiness from moment to moment these days. She says she has let go of the things that she ultimately could not control and accepted the things she has lost in the process. Stone had a romantic vision of the way her life and love would play out; like some Disney-inspired fantasy. “I met him around the same time of life as my grandparents met,” says Stone. “But, it wasn't like my vision at all and afterwards I felt as though I had tried to simplify life and turn it into something that was manageable for me. I tried to control and manage the situation, but the more I tried the more the dream of what I had always wanted slipped away.”

“Maybe it was because I was a girl who was obsessed with the 'Princess' story?” she ponders. “Our parents were great parents, but between the two of them there wasn't a lot of love. I had these grandparents that everybody used to talk about because they were so in love and they travelled the world together. They found each other. I think in my head as a kid I thought that someone would find me and I'd be happy. I'd be so happy that I would never have any feelings of sadness or darkness. I wouldn't be having that feeling in my stomach of wanting more. And then you become a teenager and fall in love and then I instantly assumed that was it. It was all figured out.”

Like the failure of her romantic dream, Stone had never imagined her music career turning out the way that it did. She says the sibling duo thing seemed to evolve from circumstance more than any pre-meditated plan. “It's been such a strange journey with me and Angus,” says Stone. “Originally when we were writing and living together we really wanted to play music on our own. It just happened that because we lived together, we would drive to open mic nights together. I would sing harmonies for his shows and then he would sing backing vocals for my shows… We never had the intention of combining together and becoming Angus & Julia. That kind of happened really gradually in this kind of subversive way.”

Despite the Stones' reservations, the pair has succeeded in becoming one of the most formidable family partnerships in Australian music history, accruing a massive fan base in Australia and abroad. In 2010 they claimed the two most coveted ARIA's with Single Of The Year for Big Jet Plane and album of the year for Down The Way. If that wasn't enough, in the same year they also took out number one on triple j's Hottest 100 for Big Jet Plane. Stone says they didn't really examine what they were and what they were becoming back then because they had so little time to contemplate anything. “Those moments of 'wow, this is really working well' came rarely. Some of those moments, more than ever, have happened in the last year where Angus and I revisited what we were doing together because part of us was not what we planned and not what we wanted for ourselves. We had wanted to do our own thing, but now we were putting our songs on the same record. But admittedly, we also felt at the time that it was really easy and fun to do it because it meant we got to travel together and we had the sort of support for each other. So, we kind of flirted with it and it ended up being a really fun thing, but there wasn't the sit-down moment of 'Yeah! Let's go out and be Angus & Julia Stone!' It always seemed to be like; 'Oh this could work? - Let's try an EP and see what happens? You put three of your songs and I'll put three of mine?'. Then we've got this Chocolates & Cigarettes. Then our manager comes on board. 'OK, she's got us some money to live in the UK.' Then it's; 'Ah, now we're touring!' Before you know it the years start to roll by.”

Stone recalls the turning point for her and Angus was at the ARIA's, amongst personal controversy. They intuitively knew that the other needed to move on with their solo careers. “It's funny because I think back on all that stuff of going to the ARIA awards. There was so much stuff going on that night. Angus and I are both pretty sensitive creatures and we were both going through our own personal dramas and stuff… It was just fucking drama that doesn't need to be lived on,” she says vehemently. “It was certainly not between Angus and me, but it was certainly just some stupid shit at the wrong time. For us though it was always a bit bittersweet as it happened. The more things went on we knew that we loved each other but we were also feeling confused by it as well. We never sat down and said 'Yeah! This is what we want to do!'. We had just flowed with everything instead. After the awards I don't even think Angus and I had champagne that night, we just went into our separate hotel rooms.”

Shortly after the ARIA success, Stone surprised fans with her debut solo record The Memory Machine, signifying her definite change of musical direction. “At the end of touring Down The Way, Angus and my relationship had come to a really good place where we felt really honest and open with each other,” Stone recalls. “We both had this really honest conversation about what we were feeling and we had started working on a record together but we both intuitively knew what the other was feeling. I think that is the real benefit of working together. All those years of hanging out, we just know what's going on with each other pretty clearly. So we said 'well, let's talk about this'. We both kind of felt the same. It's time we challenge ourselves in this other way and go off and do our own thing. Let's see what this feels like, because unless we do it we're never going to know. Going solo has been such a big thing for us because it was something that we really wanted to do.”

Now with her second solo album, By The Horns, out and being well received by fans, as well as a packed national and international touring schedule planned, it seems that Stone has found her new way. “I feel clearer about knowing that I don't know anything at all,” Stone admits. “I used to have this idea that I could somehow control my life to play out a certain way and I think I have been taught a lot of lessons by having things go not the way I thought they would. I don't regret anything. I think that the older I've got on, the journey we've been on has shown me a lot about the fact that really you don't control anything. You can make choices, but as soon as you make the mistake of thinking that you are the one that makes things happen you can have a problem. In the past I had a lot of visions of how love would play out and how I thought my life was going to be. It's become totally different to what I had expected it to be. It's amazing, but it's not what I thought. It's totally not what I thought and that's OK, but it's made me more open to the possibilities of life.”